I have made a reply with each Captain’s name. This is not a popularity contest. This is a Leadership contest. Who is/was the best captain?
Upvote your choice(s). Comment on your choices if you like, explaining your rational… or don’t comment if you don’t like.
PLEASE, do not comment negatively on any captain. Let the love flow for these captains. Positivity please.
Lastly, if you know a captain I missed and you want to add them, feel free! There are a lot I didn’t include because I just tried to hit the major franchises, but there are certainly some worth mentioning.
P.S. I’m not a student of Trek or even that smart, just a fan trying something, so if I screw it up please forgive.
Honestly that feels offensive to Janeway. She never put herself above Starfleet. She never put her own personal aspirations above the crew. She never had to be taught the same lesson a half dozen times only for her to repeat the mistake. She didn’t let love cloud her decision making time after time after time. She didn’t learn on logic only to throw it out when convenient. I can’t see a single parallel between the two.
Until this season I liked Burnham. Not my favorite but liked her. But she’s doing the same mistakes from season 1. She hasn’t learned. I liked her because of perceived growth but this final season cemented that it wasn’t growth. It was self preservation.
Fuck her. She’s just a selfish cunt in a uniform. A uniform she repeatedly finds herself wondering if she should be in it. Every. Goddamn. Season. Well guess what honey. No. You fucking shouldn’t be in it. Go eat the wrong type of mushroom.
Also for the record, I’m not angry at you or anything. Pissed off at the writers. I wish she was a Janeway knock off because then there’d be something redeeming.
I see parallels:
That said, I agree on Janeway being the better telling of each - that’s my point too. I regularly think “I should just rewatch Voyager, instead”.
Which, oddly, isn’t to say I would rather watch Voyager than Discovery. I adore Discovery, and it has some stories that haven’t ever been done as well in other Trek.
But Burnham, specifically, constantly falls into Janeway’s shadow, for me. And to me she was more interesting as a convict, and as a science officer, than as a Captain - for the same reason.
I am looking forward to seeing an ex-convict Federation Captain. I think there’s interesting stories to be told there.
Ah okay I see where you’re coming from. I’m just so incredibly stuck on how much of a categorical failure Burnham is in every facet of a Starfleet captain that I haven’t even attempted to compare her to anyone else. By every single measure I can think of she fails that test.
Janeways tough call was weather or not to protect a race she had never heard of at the cost of her and her crew being likely stranded and remain stranded for the rest of their lives. She tried everything else in her power to do otherwise but accepted the ultimate cost when needed.
Burnhams tough call was blasting her friend out of an airlock or the death of all sentient life. She tried everything in her power to do otherwise but did not accept the ultimate cost. Nhan had to blast her from the airlock. Time was running out. It was up. Burnham did nothing but scream. Honestly… when has that changed in the newer seasons? Unless it directly serves her, she doesn’t make tough calls. People have to force her into it. Fuck sakes earlier in that same season she found Spock and it was Sarek who had to force her to turn Spock into Starfleet, pointing out she would lose everything all over again. Then in Season 3 she has this whole bit about whether or not she belongs in Starfleet, it coming really to a head in that kickass episode with Mama Burnham and Ni’var, Unification III. She says she doesn’t know. Had she fucking ever?!
Every other Captain we have followed puts Starfleet first or the needs of the many first. Burnham just… doesn’t. It’s all about her. On one hand the show is entertaining but on the other hand it sits squarely in a universe where how to be a good Captain has been readily defined or at least has shining stars to look towards. I mean Saru even looks at other Captains in Season 1 when he’s trying to model himself. But Burnham is unlike any other Captain for me. That’s why I completely agree with you staying as either a convict or a science specialist. Getting her rank back is fine but when she became Captain after all she has done… just so unearned. There was one sort of speech she was giving Rayner in episode 2 about how to be a Captain and I had to pause the TV after shouting “GURL” at my TV so loud I scared my cat.
I sound kinda angry and frustrated here because frankly I am. I’ve been rooting for the show and her since the start but she just keeps slipping on the same lessons she’s already learned and falling back to the same self absorbed ways. As the son of a narcissist, I’ve kind of become disgusted with her character because of it. The scene in the first episode when she gives Kovich that ultimatum on reading her in turned me against her so fucking violently and with such intense revulsion that I lost every goddamn ounce of passion for the show. I still love it. Still have been watching it. But where I would have been up at midnight waiting I am now being pushed into watching it by my roommate.
Also where the fuck is Stamets this goddamn season.
Sorry I angy. I am angy. I’ve been stressed with some behind the scenes shit in my own life and the show just hit hard at a bad time for me. I stop bitching now. I do love everything else about this season with the exception of a couple small things, same with any season. The ‘baddies’ I didn’t see coming.
Oof. Sorry to hear that. I hope you can hang in there and weather it. I appreciate your perspectives around here.